


When The Spring Came

by Shenno



Category: Les Misérables (TV 2018), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternative Universe - Javert Survives, Canonical Suicide Attempt, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Seine, Rivette ships valvert, parisian cops mlm solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-19 04:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenno/pseuds/Shenno
Summary: After the June Rebellion, Rivette meets Jean Valjean properly and gets to know Javert just a little bit better.





	When The Spring Came

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed from the BBC adaptation Rivette and some of his scenes, namely his meeting with Valjean near the sewers and the beginning of Javert's breakdown in front of him. In everything else, I relied on the blend of the brick/musical canons.
> 
> English is not my first language and this is un-betaed, so all possible weirdness is mine. However, I sincerely thank cochranesfrigate (mycravatundone on tumblr) for the cheerleading <3

On June 8, a gamin brought a note from Javert, and Rivette could finally breathe freely. 

The conversation they had on that fateful evening on June 6, left him with an uneasy feeling. It gradually turned into full-blown anxiety, when the Inspector didn’t come to work the next day. Everything about it felt wrong. Javert's obvious dismay and his decision to let Valjean go were as bizarre an occurrence as if the Notre Dame’s gargoyles decided to come down and give their stone wings some exercise. Rivette was at a loss, his attempts at saying something vaguely comforting made himself wince internally, but his alarm grew tenfold when Javert left and Rivette read the letter he left to the Prefect. The recommendation for the betterment of the service, ha! It looked more like a…

No. No, it was not the writing of someone who intended to wake up, as usual, and go back to work. Rivette tried to chase away these thoughts the best he could. Still, he wasn’t really surprised when the next day Javert didn't come to the office.

Rivette tried to reassure himself: perhaps he has received some orders from the Prefect and now is on the streets. 

This is Javert.

Bullets can’t kill him.

Nothing can happen to him. Can’t it?...

Then he thought of Javert’s face that evening and his heart dropped again. 

For a walk! 

He was such a ninny. How could he let the chief leave on his own? Even if he hadn’t allowed to accompany him, Rivette could have just followed, made sure the Inspector hadn’t fallen prey to a runaway rioter or a street robber. That he hadn't…

(Rivette tried not to follow this train of thought. Javert’s face, crumbling from the inside, kept emerging in his mind’s eye, belying his efforts.) 

If something has happened to the Inspector, it was him, Rivette to blame.

And, of course, _that man._

 

***

 

Javert’s obsession with Jean Valjean could be compared only to his obsession with his work and has become proverbial at the station. Someone joked once that police service was Javert’s wife and Valjean – his mistress. Rivette was positively convinced no one would dare to repeat in the Inspector's presence. 

He also had his suspicions that even this joke might have a grain of truth. When Javert talked about that man, some imperceptible change came over his face. It was the face neither of the policeman unable to carry out his duty nor of the predator whose prey escaped from its jaws. No, in such a manner a beggar looks at the unattainable splendour of the bourgeois mansion; in such a way, a sailor looks up at the sky, longing for the native shores. Rivette didn’t know whether the Inspector realized it or his furious stubbornness concealed it from himself even more sure than his aloof loneliness did from the others. 

Either way, Rivette was reasonably sure – although it was not something he would care to share with anyone else – that it was not only the professional pride and sense of justice that compelled Javert to comb the city in the vain attempts to apprehend a criminal who was not, for all intents and purposes, a big fish.

On June 7, these thoughts besieged Rivette. From anxiety, he quickly turned to self-reproach. He blamed himself for his flippant remarks and for apparently underestimating the Inspector's distress. But how could he have known better if it was, well, Javert? In the evening after the shift Rivette stopped by Javert’s apartment, but the portress hasn’t seen him for a few days.

The heavy feeling in Rivette’s chest turned into a proper stone, heavy and sharp. Something has happened to Javert, it was obvious. He couldn’t just disappear like that.

Something has happened, and Rivette was the only one who could have done something about it, but hadn’t.

He slept poorly that night. Javert was never his friend, but they worked together for years and Rivette admired him. To think he felt such a relief when the chief returned from the barricades, only to let him go into the unknown a few hours later.

If he located a carriage driver who was hired that night, perhaps he would be able to find Valjean again. Perhaps he knew something about Javert or had done something to him. (Rivette was ready to admit, though, that when he thought of the scene he witnessed near the sewers entrance, and how that dirty, exhausted man begged Javert to help him save someone else’s life, the idea of Valjean doing something to the Inspector seemed less likely than it probably should have been.)

It was another restless night for Rivette, so he might be forgiven for a brief, stunned incomprehension when a sealed envelope and another folded piece of paper with a familiar signature were pushed into his hands. Only then did Rivette fully realize that deep down he was convinced the chief was dead.

The note was addressed to Rivette. Javert informed he was taking sick leave and asked to pass the letter to the Prefect. And that was it. Nothing about when his plans for return, and, even more surprising, no instructions of any kind. It took Rivette one look to make sure it was indeed Javert’s signature, but there were no usual energy and strictness in the familiar handwriting as if the author was too weak to compose even these few lines.

Scolding himself for inefficiency, Rivette ran out on the street, but of course, the gamin was long gone. There was no return address on the note.

 

*** 

It took Rivette two days to locate the driver and trace back the route. He would have managed it faster if he were able to do it during his working hours, but for the reasons unclear even to himself, he didn’t want to his colleagues' or Prefect's attention to Valjean. That was why on a Sunday morning he found himself standing alone before the unassuming door on the Rue de L’Homme Armé.

No one answered the door for a long time. Perhaps Valjean ran away again. Perhaps, it was a bad idea for Rivette to come alone after all. What was he hoping to achieve? Maybe Javert was mistaken – he must be capable of mistake – and Rivette was about to face the criminal infamous for his strength all on his own.

Finally, when he almost talked himself into leaving and coming back with the gendarmes, the door opened.

It was the first time Rivette saw Jean Valjean in a broad daylight and without the layers of dirt. As it happened, the “Wanted” poster was unjustly unflattering to his appearance. Dark-eyed, with the shock of the unruly curls, Valjean looked like a wary bird, but still, there was some strange, composed dignity in the way he held himself.

“Officer.”

“I’m looking for Inspector Javert,” said Rivette.

Truth be told, he didn’t know how to address this man. Without a proper reason, he wasn’t going to go against the chief’s decision and arrest him. But he couldn’t bring himself to pay the respect the bourgeois clothes and the mild manners seemed to demand either.

For a few moments, Valjean studied his face and then nodded, letting Rivette in. They walked past the sitting room, which looked unlived-in – was there another apartment? – except for the old blanket, thrown over the sofa as if someone has slept there. Valjean led Rivette to one of the doors along the corridor, opened it quietly and stepped aside, allowing him to peek into the room.

Even in sleep, the Inspector scowled in either pain or displeasure. The piece of fabric on his forehead was obviously soaked in the water from the basin standing on the floor nearby. The blankets were in a disarray, telling the tale of the fever and chills following each other far too often. 

Rivette shut the door and walked to the sitting room. Valjean followed him silently. 

“What has happened?”

There was a pause.

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the Inspector’s condition. He will tell you what he deems necessary when he wakes up,” said Valjean finally.

Rivette just shook his head, feeling somehow even more agitated now that he has seen the chief than he was quite in some time. 

“Look. I saw the Inspector that night, after your little trip. He was not himself. He told me that he decided to let you go, that he was no longer sure he deserves his position. Wrote a letter to the Prefect, telling how the prisoners should be allowed their shoes and chairs, and walked away earlier than I could…”

Rivette didn't know what was the expression that crossed Valjean’s face when he heard of the letter’s content. There was something there except for the surprise, except for the unbearable compassion. Rivette broke off and started pacing down the room to avoid that look more than to let out his frustration. 

“Is the Inspector your friend?” after a few long moments, asked Valjean quietly.

“He has no friends,” there was no mirth in Rivette’s smile. “But he is my chief. The best I could have asked for.”

Valjean nodded. He didn’t look surprised. For another long moment, he simply watched Rivette, as if assessing quietly his whole soul and heart. Unwillingly Rivette thought that he was starting to understand Javert. The criminals should not look in such a way. 

“I fetched him out of the Seine,” Valjean said finally. 

Rivette inhaled sharply and nodded. 

“I see you are not surprised. Well then. I still can’t wrap my mind around it. I summoned a doctor. The Inspector broke his right leg, there are few cracks in the ribs. Fever. Will you be able to care for him? I’m ready to go.”

“Go?”

“You are going to arrest me, aren’t you? I told the Inspector I wouldn’t resist.”

Rivette gave a start and stared intently into Valjean’s face, but didn’t see there anything except for the calm melancholy resignation. 

So, that’s how it is.

That’s how it is.

“The chief didn’t want to arrest you,” said Rivette finally. “It’s not my place to disobey him.”

Of course, strictly speaking, this was not true. A criminal remains a criminal regardless of what the Chief Inspector might decide. They both knew this. However, to Rivette the thought of going against the decision which, quite possibly, had led Javert to the Seine, suddenly seemed unbearable.

 

***

On several separate occasions, gamins brought notes from a “Monsieur Fauchelevent.” In them, Rivette briefly, but politely was informed of the Inspector’s well-being.

“The fewer has broken,” reported the first one.

“Tries to walk around the room.”

“Argues about the interpretation of the Bible,” informed another one drily. Rivette snorted and hid it in his desk, far from the prying eyes. It was extremely easy somehow to imagine Javert, irritated by the long idleness and trying thus to pick unnecessary fights. 

Rivette hasn’t noticed when he stopped thinking of Valjean as a criminal and started as, perhaps, he would think of a colleague, with whom he would share a knowing glance when the chief became insufferable.

Nevertheless, Rivette decided against visiting the house on the Rue de L’Homme Armé again. Somehow in his mind, it meant crossing too many personal boundaries, whether because of imposing on the Inspector’s convalescence or on the space he somehow improbably shared with Valjean, Rivette knew not.

 

***

Javert returned to work in the middle of August, leaning on a cane and conspicuously limping. From time to time he had coughing fits which he tried to conceal unsuccessfully. No less in vain were his attempts to hide a closed-off, dull gaze and sluggish movements. It seemed like even talking, even thinking was too much of an effort for him, as if the illness depleted him of all his strength.

Rivette was secretly glad that at least for a few weeks the chief will be busy with the paperwork.

Except for this, nothing seemed to change, as if Javert weren’t absent all this time, as if he weren’t at the barricades, as if that evening on June 6 was just a dream. (“I fetched him out of the Seine,” the voice in Rivette’s head repeated, belying this impression). In any case, Rivette greeted the familiar routines.

At the end of the day only on his way home he realized, that there was something that changed: the “Wanted” poster with Jean Valjean’s face has vanished from its customary place on the wall behind the Inspector.

 

***

Soon it became evident though that some of the chief’s habits have changed as well. He has always worked overtime, but these days he seemed not to leave the office at all. The exception was some days once or twice a week he left the minute his shift was over as if he was hurrying somewhere. 

Rivette was reasonably sure that no one, aside from himself, noticed these irregularities in the chief's schedule. He also realized suddenly for the first time that no one really thought of the irreproachable, strict, devoid of any vices or weaknesses Javert as a real person, capable of suffering. 

Rivette remembered all too well, however, how the chief was crumbling before his eyes that night in June, and he wasn’t going to repeat his mistakes. So, he watched with worry how the shadows deepened under Javert’s eyes, and how he spent sometimes long minutes staring into the distance unseeingly. Rivette was particularly glad that the chief was buried under the paperwork, because being on the streets in such a distracted state might have cost him his life.

It was the only consolation, though, so when it was the eights day when Javert could be found at his workplace at any hour (Rivette's night shifts couldn't possibly just happen to coincide with every time Javert decided to stay late,) when Rivette’s patience ran out.

“Sir, you need to sleep too,” it was past eleven on the clock and there was no one else in the office except for Rivette and Javert. “You are still recovering from your illness.”

"It might be detrimental to your work," Rivette thought for a moment of adding, but decided against it. He wasn’t going to pretend his personal concern was something other than that – personal. A rebuke and an accusation in being too familiar were, therefore, a price Rivette was willing to pay, but, to his astonishment, Javert looked surprised rather than angry.

“Not you too,” he said under his breath.

“Pardon?”

“It’s nothing,” the Inspector put down a document he was working on and closed the folder. “You are right. But you should go home too.”

They left the station together. “To make the chief go get some sleep” was definitely Rivette’s most glorious achievement of the day.

 

***

During the next months, looking after Javert turned into a habit of a sort. The relationships between them were still hardly friendly, but still, Rivette felt something has changed as if the impenetrable wall Javert built around himself became just a bit lower. 

As it happened, he also no longer gave too many causes for concern. As always, he could lose himself in his work for hours, forgetting about the time, people around him and of course such trifles as eating, but all of this was familiar and normal. Even the dullness of his gaze gradually turned into something else, some nervous energy, which reminded of the times the chief couldn’t stop thinking about some complicated case.

It was the beginning of December when once again it was the two of them who remained in the office after the shift has ended. Javert sat at his desk buried in the documents like a hedgehog in the autumn leaves.

“I didn’t know something interesting was going on.”

Rivette wasn’t sure whether to expect an answer, especially because this time it was just the random curiosity which moved him to ask.

“Pardon?” said Javert distractedly, lifting his head only for a second. It seemed like until this moment he hadn’t even noticed Rivette was still in the office.

Instead of answering, Rivette nodded at the paper stacks in front of the chief, and this was what has finally attracted his attention. Javert made an aborted movement as if for a moment he considered covering the documents with his hand. Instead of hiding, however, his movement revealed from under his elbow the corner of the familiar “Wanted” poster.

“I…” Javert licked his lip and for the first time in ages Rivette felt under the full weight of his glare that he was trying to search his thoughts and the very soul. Finally, having decided something, he said: “I’m working on a petition to have Jean Valjean pardoned.”

“Oh.”

More than anything Rivette wanted to ask whether the Inspector kept an acquaintance with him. He didn’t know how to do it as a friend and not as a policeman, though, and the answer seemed to be fairly obvious. So, he risked another question:

“Do you believe he deserves it?”

“Yes,” Javert said without a moment’s pause. “If anyone deserves it, that’s him.”

There was nothing more Rivette could think of saying. He wasn’t sure Javert knew about his visits and the notes he received from Valjean that summer. The chief has always valued his privacy. Moreover, if he were asked to testify before the court, Rivette wouldn’t hesitate to give Valjean a positive characteristic. Discussing with the Inspector the specifics of his acquaintance with a wanted criminal, however, especially at their workplace, still seemed wrong.

“Then I wish you good luck,” said Rivette finally. “And if you need my help with anything, you can always count on me.”

Something flashed in Javert’s eyes: a vulnerability, so very different, however, from that raw, excruciating feeling Rivette unwillingly witnessed in June. Now it was something simpler, calmer. 

“Thank you,” said Javert softly.

 

***

The morning on April 11 was surprisingly warm. Having come to the station an hour before the start of his shift, Rivette stood for a few minutes near the entrance, enjoying the sunshine hinting for the first time at the arrival of the true spring. Inside the building, it was much colder, but Rivette didn’t let this spoil his mood. He sat at his desk, pecking at the baguette he bought for breakfast (at home he had something more exciting to do than eat today), opened the newspaper and immediately saw the familiar name. After looking through the article quickly, he gave a sigh of relief: pardoned. Jean Valjean was pardoned, his name and civil rights restored. 

Even without listening to his colleagues’ conversation on purpose, Rivette knew they were talking about it. The unintentional role of Javert’s confidant compelled him to refrain from any participation in such conversations, so he buried himself in his report, trying to convey with his whole appearance that he was too busy to be bothered with any gossip. 

For the first time in all the years they were working together, the chief came to his shift almost fifteen minutes late. As soon as he walked in, the silence fell. Javert purposefully reached his desk without meeting anyone’s eyes, but still, as soon as he was seated, one of the sergeants coughed. 

“Inspector? Have you seen today's newspaper yet?”

“Yes,” said Javert curtly. Rivette noticed that his posture, strict as it always were, now became decidedly wooden.

“How come he was pardoned? Weren’t you asked to testify?” asked another one.

“I testified.”

“Did they not listen to you?” the surprise in one of the younger sergeant’s voice was so obvious that Rivette was covered a small smile with his hand.

“Oh, but they did,” Javert finally lifted his head, but his eyes were still not on his colleagues. He seemed to be staring either into some unfathomable distance or inside himself. “I said that pardoning Jean Valjean will be… just.”

And with this Javert once again turned all his attention to a document in front of him, effectively ending the conversation. The silence in the office was deafening and Rivette, hiding a smile in his moustache, loudly shuffled his papers, until gradually the room started once again to fill with the sounds of quills scratching and the muffled conversations. 

After almost an hour-long pause, Rivette, under the guise of a case-related question, came to Javert’s desk.

“Congratulations,” he said softly. “Please, do pass him my best wishes.”

To a less familiar observer, it might have looked like nothing has changed in the Inspector’s face. Joy didn’t make its expression softer or the creases near his mouth less deep. However, the overall impression was as if a hundred-year-old oak suddenly sported the new greenery for the first time in ages.

“If you wish, you can pass them yourself,” he replied. “If you are free on Friday’s evening, he asked to invite you to dinner. It seems he got it into his head that he should thank you for something.”

“I am free,” agreed Rivette without hesitation.

 

***

The sitting room on the Rue Plume was rather cool, but the soft evening light made the furniture shine from the inside with the golden warmth. The sun glinted off Javert’s buttons and turned Jean Valjean’s curls into a shining cloud. It turned the modest, but cosy room into a Romantic painting, and people in it into incorporeal spirits. 

Rivette wasn’t sure what he expected from the invitation, but it was certainly something else.

Valjean’s soft voice and mild manners made a good impression. He still somewhat reminded of a nervous bird, ready to take flight at any moment, but something has changed since that time Rivette saw him the last summer. He couldn’t tell whether the reason for it was the pardon or Javert’s presence. 

The Inspector, this Rivette could claim for sure, was also different somehow. If Valjean were more relaxed, Javert seemed to be floundering between the enchanted serenity of a snake, basking in a beam of sunlight, or a dog under the tender hand of its master, and bursts of nervous tension. At any time, however, his eyes followed Valjean, as if from the hunter Javert now turned into a planet on his orbit. 

Rivette felt incredibly out of place, but there was no other place either he would have preferred to be at this moment. (Not least of all because the food was simple but tasty and there is no policeman in his right mind who would refuse a good free meal after the long shift. If Valjean’s small smile was any indication, he realized it as well, and for some time the three of them concentrated on their food.)

After the plates were taken away and Valjean served tea, Rivette started to worry they will not find any safe conversation topics, but Javert quickly dissipated his fears. In response to some of Valjean's questions, he started retelling one of the more dramatic episodes of their hunt on Patron-Minette, becoming increasingly more animated. Valjean listened to him with what seemed to be genuine interest, and, seeing how their generous host wasn’t discomforted by the topic, Rivette started to add this and that:

“You are underestimating yourself, sir. You must have all the credit for preventing that robbery. And for the Gorbeau arrests as well.”

“Gorbeau!” Valjean exclaimed and looked at Javert. “Please tell me you are not always so reckless.”

“So it was you!” the wolfish triumph, which Rivette remembered so well, showed on Javert’s face for a moment and disappeared without a trace. Valjean’s answering smile was both apologetic and cheeky.

“The circumstances had us meeting at every turn,” he said and briefly touched Javert’s arm. “But please, do be more careful the next time.”

Javert’s dark skin suddenly acquired a purplish hue, and Rivette took a sudden interest in his cup to hide a smirk. Well, this type of awkwardness for sure was preferable to the usual artifice of the hosts trying to make a good impression so hard it felt more like watching a poor theatre performance.

This way, they spend almost an hour trading stories. To be perfectly honest, Rivette was very curious about hearing of Valjean’s straight from the source, although he realized perfectly that far too often it was not something one would wish to recall for the sake of entertaining a company. Nevertheless, having relaxed after some time, their host did not only tell how he came to be in the Gorbeau house in the evening Patron-Minette was arrested, but also of how he evaded the Inspector by climbing over the nunnery wall and how in order to return there properly, he did not only hide in a coffin but was almost buried alive. Javert nearly choked on his tea by this point and Rivette couldn’t tell what was more amusing, the story itself or the Inspector’s face. 

Javert was more at ease here than Rivette has ever seen him. He wasn’t surprised that as the hour grew late, Javert seemed to have no intention of leaving.

“The food was very fine, thank you,” said Rivette politely. “Did you cook yourself?”

“Well, the Inspector helped a bit,” nodded Valjean. The chief looked for a moment like he has been caught doing something indecent.

“I’m not much of a cook,” told Rivette with a smile, “so it’s not often I’m having a home-made meal.”

“Are you not married?”

“Much like the Inspector, I’m not,” Rivette held the eye contact and couldn’t help but notice when a hint of understanding smile entered Valjean’s face. “Thank you for your hospitality. If you have time, I would like to repay in kind.”

“I’m sure we will think of something,” replied Valjean solemnly. Rivette pretended to be busy with straightening his greatcoat because the chief was unlikely to appreciate the smile he couldn’t hold back at this casual “we.” “Allow me to see you out.”

Javert simply nodded his goodbye and stayed inside while Rivette and their host walked through the overgrown garden to the gate leading on the Rue Plume. It seemed Valjean wanted to say something, so Rivette slowed down his step to give him more time to gather his thoughts. 

“Thank you, for what you did last summer,” when they reached the gate, said Valjean finally without looking at Rivette. “I’m glad the Inspector has such a friend.”

“I still don’t think he would agree with the word,” Rivette chuckled. “But still I'm glad there is someone to take care of him now. And that our acquaintance may be resumed under the more fortunate circumstances.” 

“I am still not sure I deserve it. But if Javert thinks so…” Valjean shrugged helplessly and shook Rivette’s hand. “Have a good evening, Monsieur.”

“You too, Monsieur Valjean,” the respectful address Rivette baulked at that summer fell now naturally from his lips.

It was already dark, but the air was warm yet. When the gate closed behind him, Rivette stood on the street for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the garden on the other side of the wall. If he tried, he thought he could discern the smell of the fresh greenery over the usual stink and dirt of the city. 

In the small rented flat half an hour on foot away, Daniel was waiting for him, and this thought, as usual, filled Rivette with warmth as sure as the spring sun warmed the Parisian streets.

Daniel would be glad to hear that even his chief finally found a home. He always enjoyed good stories about love and about the police.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at shenno-r (I mostly post my own valvert art and reblog others), and on twitter as @porcelainbell. 
> 
> I initially wrote this text in Russian, and it can be found here https://ficbook.net/readfic/8023193


End file.
